ICE

163. A Slight Improvement

RAVENNA NEVER QUITE fell asleep. Instead, her mind wandered, creating images and potential situations that were a bit too romantic for her comfort. She tried to block it out — to think about her current situation, and about how she planned to stop Vyses.

But it was almost impossible to escape the mental image of Caelan, smiling warmly at her, his hand lightly touching her cheek again. It wasn't hard for her imagination to conjure up the mental image of his face moving closer and his lips pressing against hers.

A groan escaped her and she rubbed furiously at her cheeks, which were flushed and felt hot to touch.

When slivers of sunlight entered the room, dancing across the stone-ceiling above her head, Ravenna forced herself to sit upward. She grit her teeth and braced herself against the movement, just waiting for the flash of fiery pain to overtake her.

Instead of pain, a wave of surprise flooded through her.

There was no pain at all, aside from a slight sense of tightness. She glanced downward at the tattered materials of her dress. Her chest appeared mostly healed. Slender scars traced her injuries, slightly raised and puckered compared to the rest of her skin. Each of the scars were colored a light pink.

She scooted toward the edge of the bed and slowly stood. She stretched her arms upward, above her head. The tightness in her chest seemed to loosen. She was pleased to find that she could move freely without pain again.

Her fingers lightly touched the bandages that wrapped around her torso. A rush of blood flooded through her cheeks. Caelan had been nothing but a gentleman whenever he worked to heal her injuries, which she greatly appreciated. He was probably used to viewing her half-naked. But the idea of walking around in front of him, covered only by mere bandages, embarrassed her deeply to the core.

Ravenna made her way toward a small trunk, tucked away into the corner of the bedroom. She lifted the lid and skimmed through its contents. It did not take long to find a soft red tunic with billowing sleeves. She pulled it on and then re-tied her navy skirts tight around her waist, tucking the base of the tunic inside.

Once dressed, she left the bedroom and made her way toward the main entrance, searching for Caelan. She found him seated at the massive table in the dining room. A small spread of various breakfast foods existed in front of him. He greeted her with a stoic expression and a gesture toward the food in front of him. "Are you hungry?"

"Not fully," she admitted a little sheepishly. She sat down across from him anyways.

He eyed her new dress. "How is your chest?"

She flashed him a somewhat excited grin. "It doesn't hurt," she told him, leaning back so that her back pressed against the back of the chair. She crossed her arms. "It is a little scarred, but that is to be expected."

"Yes," he agreed with a nod. "You will most likely still have scars. It is possible that they might fade over time. As long as it doesn't hurt though, then you should be set and ready to start training. Speaking of which, are you ready to get started?"

Ravenna nodded. They moved to Tylat's old study. It appeared similar to what she remembered of it. It was a massive room, with a small spiral staircase shoved into the corner of the room, almost hidden behind a pile of discarded jars and a collection of dead plants. Small bookshelves and tables were pushed against the walls, overflowing with random items and unlabeled jars of ingredients. Just opposite of the entrance sat a podium, pressed against the wall with shelves of various items surrounding it. On the second level, Ravenna could see numerous shelves lining the walls, overflowing with an assortment of leather-bound books and loose scrolls.

Caelan snapped his fingers. The podium lifted into the air and floated toward one of the walls, stopping just before it crashed into one of the bookshelves. Without the podium, the center of the room appeared to be even larger — at least large enough to spar and train in.

"What do you remember from our last training session?" he asked her as he positioned himself several feet away from her.

Ravenna positioned her hands so that her thumbs and middle fingers pressed together. Her index fingers stretched out and her ring fingers and pinkies curled inward, knuckles pressed together. Light blue magic danced across her fingertips, encasing her hands in a soft glow. Then she held her hands out, her palms open toward Caelan. Her lips moved around the defensive spell that she had locked into her memory. A flash of light blue exploded from her fingertips. It stretched into a lop-sided circular shape, edges curling toward her like a military shield. The shield stayed stationary in front of her for a few minutes. Then it began to melt toward the ground in gooey shades of blue.

She lowered her hands. A heavy, defeated sigh escaped her. "That is what I remember," she told him.

He arched an eyebrow at her and crossed his arms over his chest. "Try it again," he told her.

Her hands moved quickly and the shield reformed in front of her. This time, it did not appear to be quite as lopsided. She did her best to focus on the shield — not so much that she blocked out everything going on around her, but more so just to maintain it. It stayed frozen together for longer this time, but ultimately melted to the ground again.

Caelan watched her. The moment the last of the shield had disappeared into the stones beneath them, his hand flicked out. A blast of white magic flew at her.

Shocked, Ravenna resurrected the shield and deflected it. "What was that for?" she asked him crossly, a scowl tugging at her features.

He cracked a small smile. "You may not feel as powerful as you are used to, considering you no longer have the talisman. But you have indeed improved since the last time we worked on this spell."

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"If my memory serves correct, you had a harder time actually performing the spell and maintaining it. It would hurt your hands. Not only were you able to block my meager attack, but you appear to be able to maintain the spell longer," he explained.

Her gaze dropped to her hands. She had never thought of it like that. It had been so long since she'd trained with Caelan, it would make sense that he'd notice something like that. His last experience with her magic was before she'd acquired the talisman and based on her original abilities. Whereas she'd grown so accustomed to her abilities through the talisman that, to her, she felt that she'd only gotten substantially worse without it.

It never occurred to her that she'd still improved, especially compared to her original abilities. Even if that improvement was very slight.

"Oh," she murmured. She lifted her gaze back to Caelan — just in time to see a sphere of bright light zooming toward her head.